


Every Letter

by derevko (sunshine_queen)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6338911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_queen/pseuds/derevko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Eliza isn't helpless for Alexander until after he's married to Angelica. As her sense of propriety will always, in any universe, be greater than his, she corresponds with him to keep him in her life (as he does to keep her in his). When he inevitably has his affair with Maria Reynolds, which Schuyler sister does he turn to first? The one who has cared more for his soul than he has himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Letter

**Author's Note:**

> I love Eliza more than anything in this life, so naturally I started thinking about universes in which Angelica married Alexander. While the variables are too many to calculate- how would Angelica have influenced Ham's policies, his actions, his _reactions_ \- I thought I would focus in on the repercussions of his affair with Maria Reynolds, specifically whether or not he would've published the Reynolds Pamphlet.
> 
> While I tagged Ham/Eliza as a ship, I want to be clear that theirs is unspoken connection because Eliza is a jewel of a human.

"May I write you, Betsey?" Alexander had asked earnestly when Angelica had brought him home as her husband. "I've never had a sister, and I imagine writing to one would do me good." And Eliza—sweet, unmarried Eliza—had nodded silently.

 

_\------_

 

Hamilton parties are grand, glittering affairs, and invitations to them are the most coveted of the season. Attendance at intimate gatherings at the Hamilton home carry even more social currency, but a gala to celebrate a visit from Mrs. Hamilton's sister would never be small.

The evening of the soiree is crisp and clear.

Mrs. Hamilton has her arm firmly around her sister's waist as they greet the guests, squeezing as she introduces the politicians and their wives, lawyers who had lost to Alexander, dear friends from among Washington's family.

"You miss so much upstate," Angelica chides her sister. "You must get a house here." Angelica and the Hamilton children are frequent visitors to Rensselaerwyck Manor, and Eliza goes down the river often—it does both sisters good to be together—but Eliza has always known her duty.

"You know how the patroon feels," Eliza says gently. "It's hard for him to be away. But I'm here now, dearest."

And Eliza is here, with the young husband who looks at her as though she hung the moon. Stephen van Rensselaer is a good man, if hard to draw south of Albany. Stephen, who has adored Eliza since they were children and who still can't believe that she chose him, is a good, ambitious, brilliant man.

"And here you must stay," Angelica says, guiding her toward the punch bowl. "A month at least, Eliza, I'll hear no arguments!"

"Nor I," says Colonel Hamilton, who joins them. "Not when I've finally my darling, dark-eyed maids together. Let me look at you both."

"You speak too effusively, Brother," Eliza says evenly, as she always does—ever cool and calm in the face of Alexander's brilliant affection.

When the music begins, Alexander and Angelica lead the first dance, and when Eliza swings by in Stephen's arms, there is a small smile on her face but no particular radiance.

 

_\------_

 

Angelica had eloped with the young aide-de-camp two weeks after meeting him and without ever introducing him to the family, so enamored was she with the thrill of the revolution and the revelation of having met a man whose mind moved as quickly as her own. It wasn't until after they had wed that Alexander met the Schuylers—her parents, whose ire did diminish in time; Peggy, who found the elopement romantic enough to recreate it; the little ones, who delighted in the novelty of having a soldier in uniform around. Her own Eliza, who had paled abruptly upon meeting him and called him ‘Brother’ as he kissed her cheek, had met Alexander in Morristown before being called home.

And if Angelica had paused long enough to consult her most beloved sister? Eliza, she knows, would have remained silent on the matter—her own reaction to Alexander nothing in comparison to a sister’s love.

Eliza had married their cousin not three months later and become one of the richest women in their new country, and when she received letters from the Hamiltons-—Angelica, first from their home in Albany, and then from New York City; and Alexander, from wherever the army took him and then from his home with Angelica—she would send them both replies of equal length, if not content.

The letters continued long after they had begun being addressed to Elizabeth van Rensselaer.

Stephen wonders, when he catches sight of a letter from Hamilton on his wife's little writing desk, half under letters covered in Angelica's flowing hand, what his brother-in-law could possibly have to say to Eliza, never dreaming that it's chiefly matters of the soul; if he ever suspects that the spirited Alexander has more of his wife's heart than she would ever let on, he keeps it to himself.

Angelica does not read Alexander's letters to her sister, the pages and pages he'll fill, nor does she read Eliza’s replies, other than to pass him the pages so addressed.

"You mustn't tease her," Angelica has warned him more than once, knowing Alexander’s propensity to show off with his Latin, or in any other way in which he is superior, though she knows the admonition is not truly necessary when it comes to Eliza. His way of impressing her sweet sister is to show improvement of the spirit—to quote scripture, or to mention good that he's done through law or in Congress. They will sit quietly on the low settee, Alexander leaning toward her, his face earnest, and Eliza, seemingly lit from within, will listen to him with a patience that Angelica has never possessed. He's a different man then, stilling when Eliza opens her mouth to speak, waiting until she has finished before starting up again himself.

Alexander cherishes those moments when the two of them are drawn fully into one another’s attention, but he knows enough that while Betsey will sit and talk with him or even take a turn with him at a ball, she will obey convention. Always.

And what he is doing is improper. It is nearly midnight a week after the gala and his house is quiet—Stephen has gone back to Albany, the Hamilton and van Rensselaer children are asleep in the nursery, and Angelica is in her own bed. So only desperation could have driven him to Betsey’s private door in his own home. Alexander, forlorn, knocks. After a moment, Betsey cracks the door ajar and looks at him with her wide, dark eyes.

It has been hard enough for him to even think of confessing to Betsey, and it’s even harder when faced with her—Betsey, who is _so good_ , and who has always maintained that he is a good man; Betsey, who loves her sister more than anyone.

His life is one of boiling down his struggles to simple arguments of whether his decision would be good or bad—for him, for others, for whatever is in the balance of a given equation. But Betsey knows the scales of goodness and wrong, and if, someday, his heart must be weighed, he would like to know she at least would weigh it as less than a feather.

"Betsey," he whispers frantically. "I must speak to you."

He can see surprise, her hand holding her robe closed at the throat. She wants to help—the little saint, the Schuyler family calls her, Stephen van Rensselaer has said with affection—and Alexander isn't above pressing that advantage. "It's most urgent."

"Are the children well?" she asks immediately, and he remembers that she experienced wartime too—the breach of the Schuyler home, loyalists and Indians raiding, the bannister still bearing a scar from the tomahawk hurled at Peggy and baby Catherine. "Angelica?"

"Yes, Betsey," he says. "Only I am unwell."

She consents to meet him in his study and arrives there a few minutes later, her robe cinched tightly, a shawl around her shoulders. Her long, dark hair is in braid, and Alexander realizes he has never seen her hair done so simply. She stands in the doorway and waits to be invited in.

She sits, when asked, in the armchair by the fireplace, perched on the edge, her back straight. He grips the mantel as she asks, "Now, then. What is this all about?"

It's the tone of the patroon's wife mediating a local squabble, or the way she speaks to the children when harmony is disrupted. It's serious without being unkind, it's soothing without being dismissive. She is looking up at him, her face gentle and round, her hair parted down the middle, and he is very nearly unmanned. He scrubs his hand over his face and thinks, absurdly, how he isn't clean-shaven, as though Betsey will judge him for that, and not for what he is about to tell her.

"In the years since we have met," he starts, "We have discussed many instances of moral or immoral behaviors. Of choices, and how intent should be first in our mind, and how we should strive for our actions to bring glory—to God, to our families, to ourselves."

Betsey looks enraptured. "Yes," she breathes. "That is what I had hoped you would remember from our correspondence."

He feels even more of a cur. "Not all of my actions do."

"Alexander," Betsey says, and she so rarely says his name—she prefers to call him Brother, or Colonel Hamilton, or Secretary Hamilton—"We all _strive_ for that. It would be very hard to manage, always."

"Yes," he nearly snaps. Betsey is watching him, looking very nearly tender, and he is going to hurt her first to make it easier to hurt Angelica. "But there have been decisions made with...with no thought for glory, or God, or anything beyond the vulgar."

"I see," she says, though he knows she can't. "Have you prayed for guidance?"

He thinks, immediately, that he hasn't, because his youthful piety had fallen out of favor when confronted with much more compelling interests found in America. "Not as much as I should." 

Betsey's hands are settled in her lap. "Perhaps it would help." He can see that she feels that this was his confession, that he was troubled by his lack of piety and needed the words of his good sister-in-law to soothe his mind. She would return upstairs, he knows, and drop to her knees to pray for him, in case his own prayers weren't enough.

"No, Betsey," he says, feeling tired. "Guidance now would come too late."

"Too late?" she looks at him, her eyes wide and earnest. "It is never too late to ask for His guidance."

"Is it not, when the sin has been committed?"

Betsey straightens her shoulders, looking almost fearful when she asks, "What sin, Alexander?"

He cannot face her when he answers. "Adultery."

There is only the sound of the fire crackling for long, excruciating moments before he can bear to look at her. When he does, he regrets it. He regrets everything.

Her trembling hand is to her mouth, and her eyes are closed tight. He is on his knees before her without a conscious thought. He has many times pictured Angelica's reaction—the fire of her rage, her scathing reprimands, her venomous accusations. Angelica's shock would never be so quiet. He doesn't know what to do with Betsey's silence, and he grabs her wrist desperately. "Say something, Betsey, please."

Her response is only to gasp in a breath, and as her shoulders hitch, Alexander is ruined. He has never seen her at the mercy of her emotions before, and he leans against her knees, still clutching at her wrist, his forehead pressed to her arm. He speaks without thought—please, dearest, don't cry, darling, hush, I didn't mean to, I didn't want to, please, Betsey dear, stop crying.

Alexander sheds more tears than Betsey—the arm of her robe is wet where he has buried his face, whereas the handkerchief he had shoved inelegantly into her hand is barely damp. When they've both quieted, he rests his head in her lap, his cheek against flannel, as he tells her as much as he can while remaining a gentleman. When he calls himself weak—which he was, he knows, and which he is still—Betsey lays a hand on his hair for a moment.

"Have you ended it?" Betsey asks at last. She has sought no explanation or clarification—but he supposes she didn't need to. It is almost a relief to have confessed everything to Betsey, and he had told her very nearly everything.

"Yes," he says, sitting up to look at her. "It's over."

"Why are you unburdening yourself now?" Betsey asks. "And why to me?"

Because Monroe has proof, he thinks, and because Angelica needs to hear it from himself before someone else. Because he can't stand the idea of being less worthy of Betsey’s esteem even as he knows she must now think so much less of him. "Because I trust you to have your sister's best interest at heart, and mine," he says finally, "when I ask what I should do."

"You must tell Angelica," she says immediately. "And go to church."

"And about the men who would destroy me?"

She shakes her head. "I wouldn't begin to know, Alexander. Angelica's..." She was going to say that Angelica is the clever one, as Schuylers always say, and he grips her hand.

"Your opinion is just as valued, Betsey," he says fervently.

She squeezes his hand for a second before pulling away. "Angelica knows better in these matters," she says, "And she is your wife. You must seek out her counsel, once you have given her your honesty."

He does not reach for her hands even though he wants to when he asks, "Can my soul still be saved, Betsey?"

He isn't entirely sure how much he believes in the Hell spoken of in church when he lived through devastation of disasters both natural and man-made, but he would never dare say that aloud.

Betsey, of course, tries to look stern but he only sees sweetness. "Do you sincerely repent?"

"I do."

"And will you ask forgiveness, most earnestly, of not just Our Heavenly Father, but of your wife?"

"I will."

"And do you solemnly, _solemnly_ swear never to sin again like that?"

"I do swear, Betsey. You believe me, don't you?" He peers into her face.

"Yes, dear," Betsey says. "You have a good heart."

It strikes him, suddenly, that no one has ever complimented his heart. His mind, of course, his strength of mind and even body when driven toward a goal, but never once his heart. Any consideration he has had these last years for God and his immortal soul has come from his correspondence with Betsey.

"Will you pray with me?" He says it impulsively, and when she looks towards the door he adds, "I know it's late, but… I'm afraid I won't do it right."

She scoffs, lightly. "I've never known you not to use the right words," she says, but kneels in front of her chair before looking up at him expectantly. "Well?"

He hastens to join her, his shoulder against hers. She clasps her hands in front of her and bows her head, and he watches her, clasping his own hands together.

"Oh merciful Father," she begins, and she does not crack her eye open to glance at Alexander, as he would have done. "We beseech Thee to forgive all our sins according to Thy promise, for the sake of the passion and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, for we are truly sorry for all our transgressions. Illumine our hearts, we pray Thee, that we may lay aside all works of darkness and as children of light may lead new lives in all godliness." She nudges his elbow with hers so gently he feels almost as though he has imagined it. "May it please Thee to frustrate all works of the Devil, and may grace be given to us, so that we might live our lives according to Thy will. Amen."

He opens his eyes to see Betsey looking at him. "Do you feel better now?"

"More than you know," he answers her truly, and leaps up to help her to her feet. "Thank you, Betsey."

"Don't prolong telling Angelica," she says firmly. "I'll not be able to forgive you that."

"I understand," he says.

"Go to bed now," she says practically, having heard for years from Angelica how her husband barely rests.

"And you," he says. "You've done enough for my immortal soul tonight."

"There's never enough," Betsey replies swiftly, "though I will go to bed now. The children will be up soon."

"Will you pray for me, Betsey? For strength, against temptation. Not the same temptation, of course, but other vices."

She looks at him strangely from the doorway. Her braid is over her shoulder and her beatific loveliness makes it impossible for him to look away. "I have always prayed for you, Alexander. I always will. Good night."

Tomorrow, he will break another Schuyler sister's heart.

**Author's Note:**

> I am devastated, I'd still like to thank [Typey](typeytypeytypey) for both encouraging this and beta-ing it so that it could be published. Thanks for reading!


End file.
